This Thursday, March 16 is the day of all dangers for the French government. Parliament must make a final decision on the pension reform bill, which aims in particular to push back the legal retirement age from 62 to 64. No mystery in the Senate where the text should be adopted without difficulty. But at the National Assembly, the suspense is total. And the Republicans still have the fate of this reform in their hands.
The final group meeting organized on Wednesday evening at the National Assembly to clarify everyone’s positions will not have been of much use. According to a close friend of Olivier Marleix, the boss of the Les Républicains group at the Bourbon Palace, between 34 and 36 deputies out of 61 are certain of vote on pension reform.
The crucial question is to know what the others will do: will they abstain, will they vote against? Calculations by voice that the leadership of the Republicans sends back in real time to Matignon. Because for the presidential camp, every vote countsand it is better, for example, to have one more abstention than one more vote against the text.
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The discussions of the joint committee on long careers in particular have obviously not moved the lines. Only three or four MPs could change their vote, according to a parliamentary source. But some LR intend to hide their cards until the last minute.
” We will maintain the vagueness until the time of the vote. Because our objective is not 49-3, it is to push the government to take the risk of organizing a vote so that it fails », Confides to us a relative of the deputy Aurélien Pradié, opposed to the project. The lying poker game will therefore last until the end.